The City of Clear Lake is bustling with projects and City Engineer Matthew Steding was happy to give a list of updates at last week’s City Council meeting.
“When you have this many projects it means that we’re doing something right, means people love the community and they want to be here. And that’s what we’re all about,” he said.
Starting with the N. 20th St. Basketball and Pickleball Courts, Steding said they needed to make a few design tweaks to the bleacher and sidewalk area. More fencing is being added around that bleacher area and the sidewalk will now come around the front, instead of around the eastern edge of the pickleball court, which will create a sitting area and entry point to the courts. While grading, Heartland Asphalt discovered some soft soil locations within the center of the new basketball court which required coring out that section and adding three inches of stone at the bottom to get a good base before refilling and grading. Asphalt was poured, rolled and set right before the rain storms hit the area for several days. After it dried, the plan was for Heartland to do a surface course on both the pickleball and basketball courts.
Rolling on to the east water tower project, located at 1300 S. 24th St. near I-35. Steding said that the workers were falling behind due to weather conditions, not just the rain, but the high winds.
“When you have to be strapped up there and sandblasting and everything, wind is a huge factor,” Steding said. “Since they were outside of town, we allowed them to actually go through the night so that allowed them to get caught back up and they’re actually on schedule as of [Monday, May 6] and most inspections have all been completed on that project. We’re hoping to have water back into the tower on Monday, May 13.”
When the final inspection is complete Steding said that the tower, which maintains water system pressure and provides water storage for both domestic and fire suppression purposes, should be back in use by Thursday, May 16.
Moving on to the S. Shore Estates housing development, just north of the Clear Lake State Park Campgrounds. Steding said he completed the sanitary inspection, conducted low pressure testing on the lines and backing testing on the manholes. The storm sewer was tested and video taken and everything is now tied in and looped to maintain good pressure and volume in the water system. Paving has begun on the site, which includes 30 lots. “That’s going to be a pretty cool thing to watch it get completed. And pretty soon we’re going to be selling houses out there,” Steding said.
Jumping from South Shore to North Shore, Steding gave an update on the Surf District renovation project which includes the new Music Enrichment & Immersive Center and Streetscape project.
“That has been a little bit stalled out, mainly due to all the rains that we’ve been having. Yohn [Construction] did get in there, they got the excavator going and all the foundations dug in,” Steding said.
After taking some soil samples they found they would need to go down another three-feet and 12-foot wide around the central foundation perimeter for the spread footings to sit on. From there they moved over to the streetscape project.
“We’ve got everything saw-cut on N. Shore Drive and the intersection of N. Shore and Buddy Holly. Yohn did pavement removals and they’re currently working out in front of the Surf. We ended up closing down the intersection of N. Shore and Buddy Holly, which was proposed to be closed down,” Steding said.
They are hoping to get all of the pavement back in this week and the landscapers are set to come in on May 20 and start laying the permeable crosswalk that will go across the intersection of Buddy Holly and N. Shore Drive. When that is finished N. Shore Drive will be reopened and the work will move over to 7th Ave. for a week to lay the crosswalk that will extend from the front of the Surf Ballroom to Three Stars Plaza. From there they will move to the work on Buddy Holly Place.
Finally, work on the Lakeview Room and City Bandshell is progressing nicely. Steding said they are doing the inside renovations on the Lakeview Room and everything is going according to schedule. The only hangup on the project is getting the doors for the new family restroom outside the main Lakeview Room area.
“The doors are a problem right now as far as lag times and lead times, so they’re gonna get a temporary door in there for the time being. If it doesn’t arrive in time we will still be able to run everything on schedule,” he said. “They’re gonna work off and on at the bandshell, but the main goal is to keep the restrooms open to the public until we have to get in there, but we’re not going to try to dive into that until more than likely after Labor Day.”
